Was Shakespeare Fatphobic? / Hoyday, Thine Answer May Be Of Shock!
“Let me have men around who are fat. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. Such men are dangerous.” ~ Julius Caesar
Shakespeare, that naughty boy, nailed the dilemma of body fat: to be or not to be? Fat or thin, that is the question—and has been since the dawn of time. Caesar knew it. You can’t trust skinny people. They think too much about being perfect.
You can’t cut off fat, like Shylock demanded, when he wanted a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Gadzooks, liposuction and tummy tucks were invented. And, Hamlet, that cheerless frat boy who today would be trading bitcoin and plotting with his good ole’ boys to storm the White House said:
“That this too, too solid flesh would melt.”
What did he know? Fat doesn’t melt. Although I have been told Cool Sculpting and AirSculpt can make fat cells shrink and be flushed away in your urine, but I have also been told that if you gain back more than 5 pounds, your abs will resemble a block of Swiss cheese.
Perhaps, a stem-cell therapy can be invented where the cells of let’s say, Jennifer Lopez, would be inserted into my body-fat, dancing my fat cells into submission. I swoon with the thought of that solution. What fools these mortals be.
In the meantime, there are options.
Back in Big Willy’s time you had Torquemada leading the Spanish Inquisition. The wheel and the rack were especially effective in lengthening one’s torso and buffing up the core. Now, we have WW, or Weight Watchers as it was known, a decades old group therapy and eating plan program. Not to be confused with AA, AAA or the KKK, hoards of chubbies—myself included—flock to meetings in person and online and learn how to eat healthy foods using a point system. The lower the points, the healthier the food.
Turnips and parsnips—zero points.
Peacock, swan and oysters—1 point.
Asses milk—3 points
Mead, ale and claret, 5 ounces—5 points.
Apple tart filled with custard and marzipan? You don’t want to know, you dolt.
Shakespeare had the right idea. Wear lots of voluminous, velvet garments, wide brimmed hats, knee high boots with copious amounts of feathers. Yards of fabric hide a lot of weight. Spandex sucks. Sir Toby Belcher, said after a night of carousing, “doest thou think that because thou art virtuous there should be no more cakes and ale?”
Meaning, my good fellows and mistresses, nobody gives a rat's ass if you are skinny and run marathons—some of us want our grub. And that, there, is the rub!
